Our Crumbling Foundation: How We Solve Canada's Housing Crisis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
FINALIST FOR THE BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK

An urgent and illuminating examination of the unrelenting housing crisis Canadians find ourselves facing, by Balsillie Prize finalist and CBC Radio host Gregor Craigie, Our Crumbling Foundation offers real-life solutions from around the world and hope for new housing innovation in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles.

Canada is experiencing a housing shortage. Although house prices in major Canadian cities appeared to have topped out, new housing isn’t coming onto the market quickly enough. Higher interest rates have only tightened the pressure on buyers, and renters, too, as rising mortgage rates cost landlords more, which are passed along to tenants in rent increases. Even with recent federal budget commitments to bring more housing online by 2030, there will still be a shortfall of 3.5 million homes by then.

Gregor Craigie is a CBC journalist in Victoria, one of the highest-priced housing markets in the country. On his daily radio show On The Island he's been talking for over 17 years to local experts and to those across the country about housing. Craigie has travelled to many of the places he profiles in the book, and in his interviews with Canadians he presents the human face of the shortfall as he speaks with renters, owners and homeless people, exploring their varying predicaments and perspectives. He then shows, through comparable profiles of people across the globe, how other North American and international jurisdictions (Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, Helsinki, Singapore, Ireland, to name a few) are housing their citizens better, faster and with determination—solutions that could be put into practice here.

With passion, knowledge and vigour, Craigie explains how Canada reached this critical impasse and will convince those who may not yet recognize how badly our entire country is in need of change. Our Crumbling Foundation provides hope for finding our way out of the crisis by recommending a number of approaches at all levels of government. The prescription for how we’re going to house ourselves, and do so equitably, requires not just a business solution, nor simply a social solution, but rather a combination of both, working hand-in-hand with all levels of government, and quickly, in order to catch up with and outpace the needs of Canadians in this ever-intensifying crisis over a basic human right.

GREGOR CRAIGIE has been a journalist for more than 25 years at the BBC World Service, CBC Radio, CBS Radio and Public Radio International. He has hosted On The Island on CBC Radio One in Victoria, BC, since 2007. His first book, On Borrowed Time: North America’s Next Big Quake, was a finalist for both the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and the City of Victoria Book Prize, and was a Globe and Mail Top 100 book in 2021. His first novel, Radio Jet Lag, was published in 2023.

ISBN: 9781039009387
Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: March 05, 2024

A Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year

“Gregor Craigie’s Our Crumbling Foundation is a deeply reported look at Canada’s ever-growing housing crisis. It’s also so chockful of solutions that it makes you want to shake politicians and policymakers and ask: ‘When are you going to act?’” —André Picard, author of Neglected No More

“A powerful, comprehensive analysis of one of the biggest issues facing Canadians across the country, Our Crumbling Foundation explores the complex housing crisis from all sides and perspectives. How did we get to this point? What are the social and economic costs? How do we fix it? Craigie offers tangible answers for readers and governments at all levels, interwoven with gripping stories that offer concrete examples of the struggles so many are facing. This expertly written book cements Craigie as one of Canada’s leading nonfiction authors in the public policy arena.” —2024 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy Jury Citation

"Craigie’s new book dives into the depths of the crisis, and offers ways to fix it. . . . A coast-to-coast primer on the crisis, touring the country city by city. . . . These personal stories of housing and instability are the strength of the book. . . . [Includes] colourful insight on how the problem is tackled under different regimes. . . . Craigie lays out 37 solutions surfaced from his home tours of the country and around the world. . . . Craigie [is] the beloved CBC host of 'On the Island'.” —The Tyee

“Gregor Craigie blends clear writing, deep research and deeper compassion in this essential study of the housing crisis that affects us all—but especially society’s most vulnerable people. By applying a global lens to a national crisis, he highlights realistic ways to solve one of the most urgent problems of our time.” —Josh O’Kane, bestselling author of Sideways: The City Google Couldn’t Buy